PMAG 40s Now Available!

Get 'em while they're hot! Coloradoans, you've got 2 weeks to stock up or you're going to have to drive to Cheyenne or make the Pilgrimage to the Mother Church in Sidney, NE. The only thing that would be better than 40-round PMAGS is a "commemorative" version with "Colorado Sucks!" engraved on the side.

Plus, I've just discovered that grey is the new FDE...how does stuff like this happen? I was just getting ready to pain my grey Honda Element FDE and now I discover that it's already totally stealth tactical and I'm once again behind the curve. Not to mention that Ripley, my grey parrot, is so stealth I can barely see him at all except for his red tail feathers. Fashion always seems to be slipping by me.

Here's a must read article, BTW, in REASON, called How Should We Classify the Sandy Hook Killings:

It may seem self-evident that the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary ought to be classified as a shooting event, or as aschool shooting or a mass shooting. Of course we classify events into categories that make sense to us, and it is easy to take familiar categories for granted. We learn of terrible crimes and we are accustomed to commentators talking about incidents as instances. But the ways we make sense of the world—the terms we use to describe that world—are created by people, and they are continually evolving, so that specific categories come into and fall out of favor. In fact, in recent decades, Americans have understood events like the Newtown killings in a variety of ways.

Definitely read the whole thing...some great insights there.

And just a heads-up...ASSAULTED: CIVIL RIGHTS UNDER FIRE, the documentary on the Second Amendment produced by Kris Koenig and my good friend Eric Katzenberg, will be premiering in select cities on 20 June. 

Why I Should Stop Watching Television

So I'm in charge of taking care of the menagerie tonight and the television is on to keep me company. I'm listening to a Republican — let me restate that...Republican — analyst state how excited he is about a 2016 Presidential match-up between Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie. Because, see, Chris Christie is the bestest conservative Republican candidate in the whole wide world!

I have to say that Chris Christie would be the final straw...I have been as pragmatic as anyone on wading through this political cesspool...sucked it up for McCain...sucked it up for Romney...but I will be damned if I'll cast a vote for an antigun floating...well, whatever it is that floats in cesspools...like Chris Christie. I'll stay home. Well, I'll vote in the other races, but if the Republicans put up a violently antigun candidate like Christie and expect the gun vote to turn out to bail their asses out yet again, they'll get the oblivion they so richly deserve.

Maybe I just shouldn't watch TV...or only watch OUTDOOR CHANNEL...and Game of Thrones...

I actually did some dry-firing today! Will drag myself up at zero dark thirty and go shoot a match. I did not get the new trigger in the Colt 901 today, but I think I caught up on everything business-wise.

Okay, teevee still on, the Discovery series How We Invented.. Guns because a bunch of my friends are on it. My friends are, as usual, right on, but the voice-over appears to have been written by many monkeys locked into a room with typewriters. My favorite part so far was where they explained in detail how the .338 launches a ".50 caliber projectile" downrange. That's cool. Now they're talking about the ".50 caliber Smith & Wesson Magnum," and how it changes even the air around it when it's fired, and how surviving shooting one is the ultimate experience in all of shooting. I think I'm going to bed now. Did you know the AK-47 will fire when it's wet? Man! I should have been taking notes...

Friday Catch-Up

I'm a little puzzled why we're going to give small arms to Al Qaeda in Syria without requiring universal background checks on each one of those so-called "rebels." I mean, it's for all those little Middle Eastern children, isn't it? And is there gong to be a registry of the serial numbers of all those small arms so we can trace them back to the individual terrorist we gave the guns to when those guns are used against Americans — as they inevitably will be? And I'm concerned that those containers full of small arms being shipped Al Qaeda Syria may all feature magazines with a magazine capacity greater than 10 rounds! And real assault weapons! Have you seen any of the Syrian videos? Hell, they don't even aim! Where is Michael Bloomberg on all this? Why isn't HuffPo up in arms? It's only common sense!

I'm sorry, but we've dumped enough blood into that sand, and I don't see any flowers blooming. And am I the only person who thinks it's time to box up Senator John McCain and have him UPS'ed to Uzbekistan, the Moon, or anywhere as far from the United States as possible? I was backed into a corner to support him for President, but he's like some aging rogue elephant crashing into trees, farms, cars, everything.

And speaking of training, this from my pal Steven Hunter on yesterday's post:

Let me add one element that I think has been crucially undercovered in all the dogmatic gunmag guru stuff, and that is: hands! You cannot and will not shoot well if your gun does not fit your hands well. And hands vary spectacularly. Mine, for example, are relatively small and thin. I cannot shoot a S&W with those Coke bottle target grips to save my life; I can't even shoot ANY .40 because the recoil is too sharp and I have no excess flesh aboard the mitts to stop it from stinging.  

In fact, I would think that a well-received piece for any gun rag would be to assemble a number of shooters with varying hand profies: fat, short fingered; thin, long-fingered; thin, short-fingered, etc.--and find optimal choices for each one. But then, that would be useful and so they'd have no interest. I seem to be shooting a Steyr M1A a lot these days, because the first time I picked it up it felt like a velvet glove. On the other, er, you know what, I will never ever in a million years even consider a Desert Eagle.  

Just thought I'd rant.--Hunter

Rants are always good, and of course he's right. Sort of dovetails with the recent memes on 1911 grip safeties, which I, like every other human with girly-man hands, think suck. Before the various shooting organizations mandated operable grip safeties, you probably couldn't find one in the U.S. that hadn't been pinned...mine included.

I was also thinking that hand in hand with training goes firearms "evaluations." You'll note that when I talk about guns I usually do so in terms of "my impressions," as opposed to "definitive reviews." The reason I do that is the one thing that I am categorically certain of — and that I am categorically qualified to give — are my impressions and observations. Both are subjective...you know who I am; you know my background; you know my prejudices; you know the time limitations/rounds hot...here's what struck me about this particular gun; here's how this specific gun shot under these specific conditions with this specific ammunition.

I question whether there's any such thing as an "objective" review. You can...and everyone has...criteria for testing, but none of us has the resources of, say, the U.S. military to conduct comprehensive trials with multiple examples of the guns and numerous different tests over a long period of time. There's also the questions of "observer bias" and a sort of "paradigm paralysis," which for an individual (or heck, the U.S. military for that matter) are tough get beyond. For example, we can say that using a specified set of ammunition our T&E gun shot groups of the following sizes...that is an observation, not an evaluation. I could, and occasionally do, go on and on.

The Cliff Notes' summary is that more is better....the more you shoot, the more examples of a specific model or type of gun you shoot, the larger and more in-depth your base of knowledge, the more interesting (I hesitate on using the word "useful") your observations and opinions become. From a consumer standpoint, the way to get around "observer bias" is to read a lot of different evaluations from a lot of different people. Ditto on the pesky issue of paradigms...the people labeled as "fanboys" are classic examples of being stuck in a paradigm, or a very specific worldview. Also beware of extrapolating from a small set, especially a set of "1:" 

"I just got my first Mini-Plastic Megablaster CCW from the Acme Gun Company...I got 4 failures to feed in 50 rounds, and that shows me the Mini-Plastic Megablaster CCW is a steaming pile of horse crap and the Acme Gun Company should be boycotted, it's executives kidnapped and tortured, the factory razed to the ground and the earth salted, and every time I see a single mention of Acme on the Internet I will go screaming bonkers crazy and launch post after post into the ether damning Acme to Eternal Damnation!"

C'mon...admit it! You've read that before!

LOL!

...after a couple of weeks out of pocket. I need a clone. Me, the "Other Mikes," Seeklander and Janich, Marty Hayes and producer Matt Shults have been working on planning for the new season of THE BEST DEFENSE...I'll post our final list of scenarios in the next couple of days. I think it's going to be a great season — last season, I believe, was our very best., and we're looking at upping it for the next season. We start filming SHOOTING GALLERY in 2 weeks, and it's going to be a killer season. Seeklander and Iain Harrison ramp up RAPID FIRE Season 2 in early July. Whew! Send in the clones...there ought to be clones...

Looks like I am going to be able to lay my hands on a Benelli Nova pump for the He-Man World Championships. I keep reading how crazy hard the match is...perfect! Once again I'll be in over my head! I hope that sometime I can get the new Geiselle  trigger in the Colt 901. I got a new recoil spring for my Wilson 1911, and I need to detail clean it as well. I still can't shake this damn head cold, either.

BTW, I have some cool stuff coming...a Blade-Tech holster set-up for competition. Plus, I have a SPECTACULAR shoulder holster system from Survival Sheath System essentially designed for the prepper community:

Robert Humelbaugh from SSS designed a great system for carrying extra ammo for a handgun, so we worked out a rig using his ammo system for the 3-inch 629 .44 Magnum Jim Stroh at Alpha Precision built for me years ago. He added a sheath for a classic Buck hunting knife on the off side (no, I knife doesn't have to be labeled "tactical" to do all the things a knife can do). I can't wait to see the rig "in person."

BTW BTW, you absolutely must be keeping up with the 1911 threads on Modern Service Weapons and elsewhere. Tim Lau at MSM, who has forgotten more about 1911s in the last 30 minutes than I know (and I have spent a bit of time around 1911s!), mentioned that yep, they're finicky, require maintenance and a few other points that we all know, and you'd think he said John Browning ate babies. It's all pretty funny and is entertaining reading.

It does touch on some important issues though, a couple of which me, Janich, Seeklander and Marty Hayes have discussed over the last 2 days. If you're one of the Pod People, you already know I have a big issue with this whole meme of finding "what's best" for self-defense. Of course that's been fodder for the firearms media ever since there was a firearms media (and, in truth, I've written heaven knows how many articles over the years on "what's best," for which I'm probably doomed to some kind of gunwriter hell).

But over the years I've had somewhat of a turnaround. What we choose to defend ourselves with is a profoundly subjective decision. The overwhelming factors in that decision are strictly personal — age, body composition, weight, height, physical condition, level of skill, daily routine/job/commute, commitment/time to train or practice, where in the country one lives, federal/state/local laws, children/no children, and on and on. Add all those factors up and you end up with a profile every bit as unique as a fingerprint or a retinal scan.

What is best for me will not be the same as what's best for Mike Seeklander or for my Sweetie. In fact,
"best" is a fallacious concept because there is no set of objective criteria for evaluation that works "across the board,"so to speak. That's where self-defense training differs from competition training. We know very specifically what a competition guns needs to do because each competition organization has a rule book that not only says how we'll be scored in the end, but specifies what the targets must look like, where they can be placed, when and how we can engage those targets, which direction we may and may not move, at what point we start and stop, etc. The result of all those specifics allows us to tailor the tool for the specific outcome desired.

In self-defense training, it is the opposite. In fact, any assumptions we might make about the number or physical ability, or mental state of potential "target/s," the environment in which we have to use our self-defense weapon, our own physical and mental state, etc. have the potential to backfire very badly...perhaps even lethally. One of the most important things I learned in my years in very high-risk sports was that assumptions can and do kill. "Assumptions" are another way of saying that we have created a mental pattern for an event; the danger is when we mistake the pattern for reality (I think I'm badly quoting Bruce Lee here). That mistake creates "lag time" in our reactions. Worst case is the classic "deer in the headlights" — "holy crap what is that bright li..." SPLAT!

Best case is we still lose critical time as we mentally spin from I know what's going to happen...to wait a minute, it's not happening that way...to what's really happening...to what should my response be now. There's plenty of time in there for a SPLAT.

Given that time is quite literally of the essence, we choose a self-defense tool that is most appropriate to our specific situation because that is the tool we will use most efficiently. As trainers, we understand — or should understand — that any and every choice is a compromise. Like the old dojo line — if you knew you were going to be in a gunfight today and you could not stay home, what would you carry? I'm going for an Apache gunship and a bunch of Seeklander's friends.

I think the appropriate role for trainers, or at least one of the appropriate roles, show the available options (and certainly suggest the pluses and minuses of each option), help people understand the compromises they are making, then teach how to utilize the chosen tool to minimize the consequences of those compromises. Make sense?

And yes, the 1911 is finicky when compared to modern service pistols. Porsches also require a greater level of skill to drive well than, say, a Chevy Aveo  (my aging Honda Element, of course, being the ne plus ultra of performance vehicles).

Dirty Tricks in Nevada!

This from Tom Gresham a few minutes ago:

Michael: 

The National Association for Gun Rights is going with a Chicago-style dirty tricks campaign. 

They are robo calling Nevada gun owners with a call that sounds as though it is strongly pro-gun.  It then gives out the phone number of the governor's office, and says to press 1, then press 3 to be connected. 

Except !!! pressing 1 is a vote in favor of SB211, and not to oppose it. 

Call this number to hear the recording.  775-671-3057 

Let's get the word out. 

Tom

Here's a quick summation from the Mr. Conservative blog...essentially Republican Governor Brian Sandoval had asked whether he should veto the onerous universal background check law passed in Nevada (as opposed to, say, Colorado Governor John Hickenstoopid, who only called Michael Bloomberg and asked his opinion on the Colorado laws):

While Washington may be ignoring you, your voice can still be heard, at least at the state level. Although Nevada’s Republican governor Brian Sandoval had already announced that he intended to veto the Nevada legislature’s “universal background check” bill, thousands of citizens called the governor’s office to make sure that he kept his word. 

Once the NRA sent out an alert notifying Nevada citizens that their legislature had passed a universal background check bill that would force people to pay $30 for a background check before claiming their gun, 2,200 people called the governor’s office this past Wednesday to protest. There were so many calls that the Governor’s office set up an emergency automated phone system allow callers to push a button to show whether their call was for or against universal background checks in Nevada. So far, 80% of the calls were in the “nay” column.

Hey, the Chicago Way says when the vote goes against you, lie, cheat and try to steal it!

Okay, I'm Back!

After a whirlwind trip through Italy, including some time at the incredibly robotic factory at Benelli, and on to Germany to spend some time at Steiner Optics and assorted Fanconian beer gardens. I'll be covering it all on this week's DOWN RANGE Radio podcast, and I'll be posting pixs when I get a grip on being back home. It was really really fun, traveling with Joe Mantegna and the GUN STORIES crew.

I know I've posted internationally before, but I'm still fighting that vicious head cold — travel seldom makes one feel better! I tried to grab as much sleep as I could.

I'm trying to get a grip on the country I've come home to. I appear to have arrived home in the middle of a Philip K. Dick novel (or, perhaps worse, a Robert Heinlein novel), with the country being methodically turned into a vast electronic Panopticon.

What do you think?

Pasta Orgy

I and my head cold are touring Italy. My Sweetie and I took a few days R&R in the Eternal City, pondering the vast rooms of the Vatican Museums and the Coliseum, then she headed back to Colorado, where children are dancing in the street at the fall John Morse, garbage-posing-as-human, and I went on to Benelli in tiny Ubino. Tomorrow we roll onto Munich for a little time with Steiner Optics.

I think I'm going to see some cool stuff today, as they have a bunch of non-disclose docs prepared for us.

More tonite...

Colorado Springs, CO, June 4,2013, The Basic Freedom Defense Fund (BFDF -www.bfdf.org),the Colorado grassroots group heading the recall of State Senate President John Morse (D-Colorado Springs) has submitted16,046  District 11 voter petition signatures to the Colorado Secretary of States' office for the recall of John Morse.This exceeds both the 7,178 signatures necessary for the recall and also exceeds the total number of votes (13,451) cast for Morse during his 2010 election.

Colorado's Worst Senator Recalled!

Colorado Senate President John Morse, whom famously went on MSNBC and bragged how he instructed Colorado Democrats to ignore their constituencies and vote for the Michael Bloomberg antigun package, has been recalled:




Colorado Springs, CO, June 4,2013, The Basic Freedom Defense Fund (BFDF -www.bfdf.org),the Colorado grassroots group heading the recall of State Senate President John Morse (D-Colorado Springs) has submitted16,046 District 11 voter petition signatures to the Colorado Secretary of States' office for the recall of John Morse.

Have not disappeared!

Traveling traveling traveling!!!!!!

Good stories when I catch my breath, though....